


Anna gets the flu

by englishmuff



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Anna-centric, I'm Bad At Tagging, Sickfic, also implied character death in the past, cuz reincarnation ya know, get your flu shot dont be like me, nonbinary paarr, not edited, please, rated teen cuz theres like 1 bad word, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24960928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishmuff/pseuds/englishmuff
Summary: anna gets the flu, and it reminds her a lot of a sickness she had in the past. feat anna being an idiot and forgeting to get her hecking flu shot.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Anna gets the flu

**Author's Note:**

> based off of 6 months ago when i forgot to get my flu shot and got influenza b (sidenote its a legal requirement to pronounce it INfluENza BEE, while moving your shoulders up and down with each accent i dont make the rules). theres a flashback thats definetely inaccurate but my fic, so my rules lol.

In all honesty, Anna should have seen it coming. The week had been long, she’d been the designated drive-around person for the week, and on top of it all, she forgot to get her flu shot last fall.

Well, maybe she pushed getting that flu shot off until she could pretend she had already got it, because maybe needles are really kind of scary and a sore arm isn’t ideal when performing eight shows a week anyway.

Whatever the case, when Anna barely dragged herself out of bed with a foggy head and a stuffy nose, she really should’ve seen it coming. She’d accidentally slept in a bit, so only Cathy and Kat were still eating breakfast. 

She sat down at their table, trying her very best not to gently slam her head down on it as Cathy and Kat both gave a way too cheerful, “Good morning!”

Anna waved half-heartedly and took a sip of whatever was in Cathy’s mug. Probably coffee, she thought, gulping it down in an effort to calm her throbbing sore throat. It worked for a second, but soon the mug was snatched from her hands and the coffee gone.

Cathay raised an eyebrow, saying,  
“What’s up? You usually are smart enough not to take my coffee, and you slept in.”  
Kat seemed to have noticed too, and said,  
“Are you feeling okay?”

Kat reached over the table to feel Anna’s forehead and Anna tried to draw back, but she was a little too slow, and Kat’s hand caught her forehead long enough for a diagnosis.

“You’re burning up!”  
“I’m fine, I was just under the blankets.”  
“Kat said you’re feverish, I’ll call an alt for today.”

Anna made the mistake of standing up way too fast.  
“Really, I’m fine!”  
She fell over, grasping for the chair and failing.

Now sitting on the floor, looking up at Kat and Cathy standing above her, Anna realized Kat might be onto something. Kat’s worried face sealed the deal though. Anna would do anything to give her peace of mind.  
“Okay, I’ll go to the doctor. Happy?”

Kat gave a small sigh of relief.  
“Yeah, I’m happy.”  
Cathy offered a hand to Anna to help her up, saying,  
“I, however, am not good with that, there’s no way you’re driving yourself in this state.”

Anna took Cathy’s hand and stood up, although, yet again, faster than she meant to, and she ended up gripping the table for balance. Cathy just nodded, almost amusedly, and said,  
“I’ll drive you, lets go now before Jane gets wind and smothers you in worry.”

The mental image was enough to make Anna say,  
“Yeah, okay. I’ll go get dressed.”  
\-------------------------  
Anna loved the doctors office. It was big and clean, had actually comfy seats, and even had a fish tank on one wall, which she loved to sit by and watch the fish swim around. Today though, the fish swimming around and the bubbles made her nauseous, and she had to look away before her stomach tossed again.

Cathy, after checking her in, noticed and lured her attention away by starting a conversation, speculating about what the other queens were doing at the moment. It was very obvious that they were doing it, but Anna allowed herself to get caught up in the, quite honestly, funny discussion.

“Anne is totally begging Catherine for a drive to McDonalds, it’s 11 isn’t it?”  
“Cathy, Anne always begs for chicken nuggets at 11:30, on the dot. It’s kind of scary honestly.”  
“Right! And Kat always tries to get Jane to take her to Target at 11, got it mixed up.”  
“What do you mean ‘tries’, Kat’s got Jane wrapped around her pinky finger!”

“Anna Cleves!”  
A voice from behind Anna startled her, and she whipped her head around to see the doctor standing in a nearby doorway, almost glowering at her. Anna exchanged a quick ‘what on Earth?’ look with Cathy before standing up to go with the doctor.

Turns out Dr. Smiley (seriously her name was Dr. Smiley) was in a pretty bad mood, and when the dreaded flu test came, Dr. Smiley shoved the swab up Anna’s nose so hard tears involuntarily came to her eyes, and she tried to discreetly wipe them before Cathy took pity on her and swiped a tissue from a nearby box.

Anna couldn’t for the visit to be over, and the moment Dr. Smiley left the room to get the test results, she turned to Cathy, saying incredulously,  
“Who in their right mind gave Doctor Chuckles here a PhD?”

Cathy dissolved into laughter, nearly falling out of their chair while doing so. That action made Anna start laughing, and before she knew it, she was laying down on the patient seat, trying desperately not to laugh too hard because it hurt her throat. 

The thought occurred to her that maybe someone would walk in on the two of them laughing their faces off at a not-very-good joke, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care. 

When the laughter eventually died down and Anna pushed herself back up in the chair, purposefully not meeting Cathy’s eyes in an attempt to rein herself back in, Dr. Smiley came back in, glaring down at the paper in her hands.

“Your flu test results came back positive,” Dr. Smiley said, turning her steely gaze to Anna. She started giving Cathy instructions for medicine pick up, but Anna zoned out, instead focusing on the hand sanitizer bottle near the sink, and thinking about how little she actually saw doctors wash their hands or use hand sanitizer.

She was about to zone back in and ask Dr. Smiley to wash her hands or something, because glove or not, she stuck that nasty swab up her nose, but then Cathy grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the office and out into the lobby so fast, Anna only had time to stutter out, “Wh-huh?” before she realized Cathy was quickly walking them towards the door.

Anna, seeing her chance, grabbed a handful of stickers on the rush out, then waved good-bye to the receptionist with the same handful of stickers with absolutely no shame. When Cathy got to the car, they finally slowed down enough for them to explain,  
“Sorry, but that Smiley gal is scary, and she was giving me the death glare while explaining, so I just really wanted to get out of there.”

They both got into the car while Anna, trying to cheer Cathy up, said,  
“Yeah, that’s completely fair, she was scary. But I got stickers!”  
She held up the stickers with her free hand, the other buckling her seatbelt, and started looking at them.  
“This one’s Jasmine from Aladdin! And here’s Vanellope Von Schweetz! And- oh! This one is Sofia the First!”

Cathy shook their head, laughing, and grabbed a Lightning McQueen sticker and Anna silently congratulated herself on bringing Cathy's spirits up.  
\----------------------------------  
The moment they got home, Cathy made Anna take some of the pills she had been prescribed, and to be honest, they tasted like moldy chalk powder, but she got it down and was sent immediately to her room to rest while Cathy told everyone what was going on.

Anna laid in her bed for a solid 2 minutes before boredom completely took over, so she sneakily went to the couch and sat there, watching Jane and Catherine argue over who should stay home with her and who should go perform.

She watched them go back and forth for about 5 minutes, before clearing her throat, immediately wincing from the pain, and said,  
“I’ll be fine here by myself. I’m not Anne, you know.”

A muffled, “Hey!” could be heard from the kitchen, from Anne who sounded like she was stuffing marshmallows in her mouth, and, knowing her, probably was. Jane and Catherine looked at her skeptically, and Jane started to say,  
“I’m sure you’ll be fine, but -”

“So, you guys go do the show, I’m just gonna watch TV anyway,” Anna interrupted Jane, using the most reassuring voice she could. To prove her point, she grabbed the remote off the floor and turned on the TV, and when Dora the Explorer came on, she left it up, just to get Jane and Catherine out and ready to start getting everyone else ready to perform.

When everyone eventually did leave, Anna shut off the TV, sick and tired of Dora’s shenanigans. She went to get herself some hot chocolate, and even stole one of Catherine’s peppermint sticks to put in it, knowing Catherine would blame Anne.

Sitting on the couch, wrapped in her blankets and sipping her hot chocolate, occasionally stirring the peppermint stick around, Anna concluded that hey, maybe the flu isn’t so bad after all. She set her cup down and closed her eyes, snuggling up in the blanket, ready for a nap.

She woke up immediately regretting doing so. Her eyes seemed glued shut, her throat and chest ached, and her head was spinning so much she couldn’t tell if she was laying down or sitting up.  
“Fine, the flu sucks,” she said to the empty living room, just so karma would stop being a little bitch. 

Rubbing her eyes so hard spots danced in her vision, she finally got them open, and when she focused long enough to see her surroundings, everything felt unfamiliar. She couldn’t help but feel like she should be in her bed, with a servant tending to her, but she shook her head in an effort to straighten (ha) out her thoughts.

“It’s the 21st century, and I’m just alone in the house.”  
Each word came out a little more shaky, until the memories of the past washed over her, and she just didn’t have the strength to fight it.  
\--  
She was in Chelsea Old Manor, swimming in and out of consciousness as a servant put a fresh, cool towel on her forehead.  
“How are you feeling, miss? I can fetch some water, if you would like?”  
Anna squinted and saw the fuzzy outline of one of her younger servants, face knotted in worry.

“Yes, I’ll have some water please. And would you send me a fruit, any kind will do, I need to eat something.”  
“Of course, miss.”  
She curtsied and left the room, leaving Anna to stare up at the ceiling of the manor, unfamiliar but welcoming.

When the servant came back in with a goblet of water and a fig, Anna smiled weakly, and tried to reach the goblet, but her arms felt like lead, and they barely twitched. She was nearly sweating from the effort, and the servant took pity on her and sat her up on some stacked pillows, slowly pouring water into her mouth as Anna gratefully gulped it down.

Although she was thankful for the water, she was embarrassed, and her cheeks flushed redder than they already were, which was a feat unto itself.   
“Please leave my refreshments on the table over there, I require some alone time, if you don’t mind.”

The servant curtsied again, saying,  
“Of course, miss. I’ll be right by the door if you need anything.”  
She set down the plate with the near-empty water cup and the fig on a nearby table and left, slowly closing the door so it wouldn’t slam.

The moment the door closed, tears started falling down Anna’s face, and she couldn’t even wipe them off. She just sat in the hot, sticky room and wept.  
“I don’t want to die.”

Her head was heavy, and it dropped down to her chest, and now tears fell onto her blanket, and they didn’t stop.  
“I don’t want to die.”

She kept whispering those damned words like a mantra, over and over again, like it could calm her, but she just wept harder until her hiccupped breaths evened out and her eyelids drooped closed. She just didn’t have the energy to keep going anymore.  
\--  
“-na! Anna!”  
Someone was shaking her shoulders, not hard, but firm, but the hands were shaky and nervous. Anna dared to try and open her eyes, and though it took effort, her eyelids fluttered open, just enough to get her bearings.

“Oh thank the Lord,” someone muttered, clearly very relieved, and the person who had been shaking her shoulders pulled her in for a hug, and the fog in Anna’s brain finally cleared. 

She opened her eyes fully to see Kat hugging her, and the other queens standing around her, worry evident on each face. Kat pulled out of the hug, and Anna sat back on the couch, almost burying her head in her blankets, embarrassed.

It took her a second to register that everyone was looking at her, expecting something.  
“When… when did you guys get here?”  
Kat sat back on her feet, not willing to leave Anna’s side, saying,  
“We just got back, and we picked up some food. We called you to ask what your order was, but you didn’t pick up, and we all just assumed you were sleeping. I’m so sorry.”

Anna was confused.  
“What are you sorry for? I was sleeping, just a nightmare. You know how it is.”  
The queens each exchanged glances, and after a tense moment Anne said,  
“You know how sometimes Kat or I talk in our sleep?”

Anna nodded her head, still confused as Anne went on.  
“You were saying, um, that you didn’t want to die, while you were sleeping.”  
A wave of shame came over Anna, that everyone else, who had been through so much, was worried about her insignificant problems.

“Just a nightmare, I promise you guys. Let’s eat!”  
She forced a smile, but it was obvious no one was buying her lie. Cathy went to sit down next to Kat on the floor and said,  
“That’s a load of bull, and we all know it. Look, we want to help you. Just because we all have, and had, different lives doesn’t mean we have to try to get through life again on our own.”

And maybe Anna’s eyes got a little teary again. Maybe after she finally spilled her insecurities about her regrets from this life and the last, she felt a little better. Maybe everything is going to be okay in the end, because maybe, just maybe, she won’t be alone ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, anna actually died in chelsea old manor, not her palace in richmond, because (bloody) mary saw she was sick and gave her parr's old house. boom, vague historical accuracy! anyway, thank you so much for reading, and have a really fabulous day!!


End file.
